In economics, a financial market is a mechanism that allows people (e.g., traders) and entities to buy and sell (i.e., trade) financial securities (e.g., stocks and bonds), commodities (e.g., precious metals or agricultural goods), contracts and other fungible items of value (herein after “securities” or “financial instruments”) at prices that reflect supply and demand. Markets work by placing many interested buyers and sellers in one “place” (e.g., an actual or electronic marketplace), thus making it easier for market participants to find each other. A trader is a market participant who buys and sells financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, futures, commodities, options, currencies, swaps, and other financial instruments or derivatives thereof. Trading is the purchase and sale of financial instruments with the intention of profiting from a change in price. Unlike an investor who buys financial instruments with the goal of selling them after an appreciation in price (usually over the course of a year or more), a trader can make money when the instrument goes up or down in value, and does so over a considerably shorter period of time than an investor.
Real-time, raw market data supplied by market exchanges are commonly used by traders, rather than using delayed (such delays ranging from 10 to 60 minutes, per exchange rules) market data that is available for free. In addition to the real-time, raw market data, some traders purchase more advanced data feeds that include historical data and features such as scanning large numbers of stocks in the live market for unusual activity. Market data typically contains information useful in showing recent market transactions and marketplace activities. For example, a market instrument, such as an energy futures contract, may have an ask price and one or more bid prices to purchase that instrument. A bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for an instrument. It is usually referred to simply as the “bid.” The ask price, also called offer price, offer, asking price, or simply ask, is the price a seller states she or he will accept for an instrument. In bid and ask, the bid price stands in contrast to the ask price or “offer,” and the difference between the two is called the bid/ask spread.
Traders generally follow different timelines for transacting within a financial marketplace. Position/trend traders may stay in positions for over a few weeks, sometimes up to a year. Swing traders may hold positions for a few days to a few weeks. Day traders may hold positions throughout a trading day (for periods that are sometimes as short as fractions of a second or as long as a few hours) and finish the day with no open positions. This form of trading requires the trader to be present in front of the computer when trading is occurring and to quickly review potentially profitable transactions based on the market data.
A modern trader may use computer software (e.g., “trading software”) to search for financial instruments that exhibit significant movement, either up or down, in a relatively short period of time. Depending on the trader's role in the market, the trader may not be interested in what will happen to a given instrument in ten years or even in one year. The trader may want to ride the change in price quickly, then sell the instrument and move on in search of other opportunities.
One problem with existing trading software is that market data is not efficiently displayed to a trader in a manner that deemphasizes non-priority data while emphasizing more critical data to enable the trader to quickly place orders based on the marketing data. Current trading software inefficiently occupies a computer screen's space by, for example, causing the display of all or a subset of market data without prioritizing the display of the “inside market,” where the most recent market transactions occur, or other data of importance to a trader. Inefficient display of market data obscures the trader's view of more pertinent trading information, forcing the trader to take additional steps to follow the market and resulting in an increased period of time for the trader to initiate a market transaction (e.g., a bid and/or call). Meanwhile, the market may have changed during this increased time period, causing the trader's previous transaction to be based on inaccurate, old information that results in a potential loss of value to the trader.
Another problem with existing trading software is that a manual interaction is commonly required before a received update to the market data is displayed to the trader. This can happen, for example, when the active market is initially displayed on the trader's screen (e.g., as a displayed list of various price levels that reflect an active market for an instrument), but after one or more market transactions are made that increase or decrease the active market to a new active price level, the display of the active market can move off of the trader's screen. This requires that the trader perform additional steps to readjust or, depending on the display, “re-center” the display to show the active market. As mentioned above, time is of the essence for traders, and even a few extra seconds in making a transaction can adversely affect a trade.
Another problem with existing trading software is that a single point of input on the screen (e.g., via a mouse) limits the opportunity and ability of the software to perform complex operations, such as simultaneously managing multiple orders, which may require several separate user transactions to complete. Each individual user operation takes time to process, which interferes with the efficiency of performing a market transaction. For example, to buy a market instrument a user may have to perform the separate steps of pointing to a buy field, typing in a quantity, typing in a price, and pressing or clicking a confirmation indicator. More complex transactions, such as an order to join the highest bid, can require even more steps that result in loss of trading efficiency.
The need exists for a system that overcomes the above problems, as well as one that provides additional benefits. Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the following Detailed Description.